clinging to a little bit of spine
by rwbyfics
Summary: Blake was the black water lake where people went to drown, she was fifty stones in each pocket and breezeblocks strapped to broken ankles. Sinking wasn't an option for Weiss, and it never would be.


Weiss would have been perfectly pleased filing her nails in lecture. There wasn't any new information floating around anyways, and Port's hour to tell heavily adapted stories of his childhood was almost up. It was laughable, really. She couldn't bring herself to attach the proper honorific before her Professor's name in the privacy of her own mind, barely managing it when she addressed him directly. It seemed fair that in the privacy of her thoughts, she simply thought of him as Port.

Simply put, a bumbling man tripping over his own feet with a particular taste for the dramatics.

Weiss frowned down at a hangnail by her nail. It rested by the edge of her index finger, puckered and inflamed. She plucked at it with the help of her other hand like it was a weed in a garden. Instead of a clean separation, the flimsy bit of her skin peeled off in a fleshy, stinging strip. Blood came quickly, dribbling down the length of her skin and inching into the lines of her fingerprints like drying soil. Weiss hissed and set her nail file down with a heavy clatter, jaw clenched as she wiped at the red trail snaking down her finger.

Ruby spared a glance her way and did a double-take at the new wound, mouth agape in a surprised oval. Weiss growled at her and waved off her extra attentions and hovering hands. God knew the bumbling fool would somehow manage to turn an encounter with a hangnail into something that required scissors and sutures, along with a possible tetanus shot.

"And so, I crossed the sea in the generous company of my dearly departed grandfather to attend the first Faunus Labor and Equal Rights Conference to ever occur. Vacuo may have been five thousand miles away, but believe me when I say that I would have crossed an entire universe to help these oppressed few. Now, as you already know, my residence was in Menagerie at the time, where I spent most of my time tending to Faunus orphans, who I'm sure would have starved had I not donated all my tournament winnings to aid in the meager cost of their meals. Can you not tell that this issue was near and dear to my heart?"

At this, Blake looked up from her novel for the first time in the hour - Weiss couldn't fathom what was in that god damned book that made the girl bury her head in it every spare moment she had - and rested her chin on her hand, seemingly waiting for Port to continue. Her thumb stayed on the page's corner to keep her place. Weiss bit onto her lip, trying to bite back a gasp as her nail bed throbbed angrily.

Port placed a hand on his generous belly and chuckled heartily, eyes briefly disappearing under the shadow of broad white brows. He crossed the pit of the lecture hall in two strides, only to stretch out his hand in Shakespearean fashion, as if cradling an hollowed skull in his palm.

"This Conference had come into play after the recent events that had recently come into light at the expense of the Schnee Dust Company."

Weiss sat up straighter from where she had been soothing the sharp ache in her hand.

"The Faunus that had been employed in their mines had recently come to the press with the vignettes of their personal employment experiences. After recounting their grueling times in these caverns, the government had no choice but to grant the Faunas a formal tête-à-tête with the Schnees. This was publicized to the entire world, so that every middle class citizen could tune in to watch the Schnees try - _and fail_ \- to regain their footing as Remnant's most widely recognized and praised Dust distributor."

Blake's eyes lit with an interested fire, the bitter curl of her mouth taking on something close to delight; she shut her book completely now, leather-bound covers shutting like the maw of a grizzled animal sinking into a weak bird. Weiss's cheeks flushed, and she tightened the prison of her teeth rather than her hands; Mother had always hated the sight of clenched fists on a woman. She said it was unsightly.

"This came to no avail, even though a rare public appearance was made by the five-year-old Schnee heiress to butter up the photographers; in fact, I believe she sits in this very room today - " Port chuckled at his own joke and surged expertly past his students's surprised murmurs. Weiss could only hear floods and rainwater in her ears.

"The SDC reported a 24 million dollar loss in stocks and sales at the end of the quarter, which led to an inevitable company downsizing. About a quarter of their staff had been let go by the end of the year. This was, in my own unimportant opinion, karmic retribution for the heinous crimes committed by a company that had been monopolizing an industry without any proper consequences.

"Five Dust conglomerates had once divided the small section of their economy between themselves. This partnership was based on family connections: marriages, friendships, peace offerings. Once the new successor of the SDC stepped into place, he decided to cut these ancient ties, deeming them unfit for the future of the Schnees. He decided the only way that the SDC could profit was if they managed to get their hands on all of the Dust that they could before the other companies could even realize the tides were turning."

Weiss's cheeks were burning into cinders.

"They sent troops of Faunus down into mines that had not been safely cordoned off yet, or even properly approved by health officials. These Faunus would mine for their freedoms, since many of them were snatched from their homes. They would work until they unknowingly reached an explosive Dust core, and... and…" Port reached the first stumbling block in his speech for the first time in an hour. He bowed his head. "Many lives were laid down in the cruel game that the Schnees had chosen to play.

"Students, if you could have seen the state of these Faunus as I did so many years ago, if even an _eighth_ of their testaments were truthful, you would cast all of your snowflake-branded Dust capsules away from you as if they were poison - "

Weiss was already halfway standing, her chair squeaking against the floor, and she would've gotten up if it wasn't for the hand on her shoulder, dragging her back down to her knees. Blake's mouth was near her ear, her breath hot and ardent.

"For once in your privileged, sheltered life, can't you shut up and listen to the truth instead of blindly jumping to your family's defense? I'm sure you have plenty of lawyers on retainer to do that for you." Blake's hiss was practically sibilant, and she released Weiss so abruptly that she thumbed back into her chair. Blake's words may have stunned Weiss into sitting back down, but she didn't hear the last few rambling minutes of Port's speech. She was shocked into silence.

Ruby's alarm went off at the first tick of three.

Class dispersed, and Blake stood up along with everyone else, limbs languid and relaxed as if she hadn't grabbed Weiss and forced her into submission in front of an audience of gawping students. She had just socially beheaded Weiss, successfully stripped her of her heritage and birthrights in a millisecond. It wasn't even the notion of being physically overpowered, it was the fact that Blake had addressed Weiss as no one had ever done before: as an inferior being.

Even during their worst altercations, Blake had bowed out with a few cutting remarks that never managed to sink in until Weiss was fuming and silent. But this was different. Blake wasn't playing by the rules anymore, and there was nothing that Weiss hated more than a wild card.

Blake slung her bag over the slender curve of her shoulder and opened up her book again, peculiarly slitted eyes already trained on the page where she had left off. She picked up her chair by the rungs and slid it under the table; her hand flitted across her book to turn the page, and for some reason, the completely casual way that Blake continued about her day infuriated Weiss.

Her hands trembled anxiously. Even setting eyes on the Faunus girl made her blood boil hot. It felt like rivers of something deadly were traveling inside of her, so Weiss forced herself to stand her ground, remaining in the walkway of the lecture hall so that Blake was unable to leave the room without stopping in front of Weiss first.

If Blake insisted on being unmoving, then she would do the same.

Blake moved glacially, and whether it was from how invested she was in her book, or how utterly apathetic she was in her everyday movements, Weiss didn't know. When she was less than a foot away from Weiss, she glanced around at the empty classroom and back down at her like a second thought.

A smirk curled around the side of Blake's dusky mouth before falling immediately; she was masking her own amusement now for Weiss's sake and it was sending the heiress closer and closer to the brink of irreparable rage. Weiss curled her fists into themselves, thumbs remaining trapped inside of the clumsily formed masses of flesh and bone. Nobody had taught her that a misplaced finger could lead to a fully fractured hand.

"If you've got something to say, I suggest you say it quickly. I've got Ancient Literature Studies in ten minutes." Blake said, not even giving Weiss the satisfaction of being taken by surprise. It shouldn't have surprised her since no one was as adaptive as Blake; she seemed to shift with her surroundings like an insufferable chameleon. The look on her face was as static as always, a calm mask of indifference.

"Do you think that you're better than me?" Weiss demanded, willing her voice to stop rippling around the edges like a disturbed pond. She was close to tears and had no idea why; anger and frustration had never pushed her to this point before, but perhaps it was because she had encountered anyone as aggravating as Blake before.

Blake furrowed her brows.

"By society's standards, my heritage is nothing compared to yours, though it's quite probably that inbreeding must have been common with your ancestors if your blood is as pure as everyone says." Blake spoke honestly, but she seemed bored, as if talking about the weather in a place where she didn't even live.

"My education was mostly public, and I surmise you were raised by a battalion of governesses. You should note that I was reading and comprehending Dostoevsky by the time I was ten years old. My combat training was informal at best, and I forged my weapon myself, while you were probably trained in home with a tutor and had your sword either commissioned by artisans or passed down from an older relative. With all these points laid out before you in detail - and I'm sure you were already aware of most of these - you have the nerve to ask if I'm better than you?"

"I didn't ask if you were better than me. I know the answer to that. I asked if you _thought_ you were better than me." Weiss could feel fire pricking along her skin in bright blue flame points; her face was flushed, she knew it, but it wasn't the sweet blush that was appropriate for an heiress, but the ruddy, tight pigment of a drunken, belligerent man starting a fight that he could never win.

Blake snapped her book shut with one hand, eyes alight with a temper that had been finally been pushed too far.

"I'm not going to sit here and argue semantics with you." She was tall, taller than she seemed before, and her pupils were as piercing as arrowheads. "Maybe if I was a miner or a servant working in your household, maybe if I was being paid out of your family's generous pocket - only _then_ would I consider continuing this idiotic excuse of a conversation with you. I can't imagine what you're expecting to get out of this encounter, but I can tell you that you will be thoroughly disappointed with what you do receive in turn."

Blake looked Weiss up and down, a scathing examination of her features. Her eyes glanced along the puckered, ugly scar crossing down her eye, the thin line of her collarbones, down to the barely existent slope of waist to hip. It seemed like she was catching all her weaknesses, assessing them and filing them away for later. There was something terrifying about being analyzed, especially by a Faunus who clearly hated your guts.

"I see you really aren't as smart as you try to make yourself out to be."

"You think you're much better?" Weiss shrilled. Her voice had taken on the insistent candor of a prepubescent child. Self control slipped through Weiss's fingers every extra moment that she stayed in the company of the Faunus girl. "You can hold yourself as tall as you want to, and you may never admit it, but you're as arrogant as I am, and you're too much of a fool to even own up to it! At least I have my upbringing to blame for my excess of pride, but what do you have to show for it?"

Weiss jabbed her finger into Blake's shoulder. She didn't budge.

"What do _you_ have to be proud of?"

Blake snarled, a real thunderous roll of fury rumbling from her chest. Her teeth flashed from the shadows of her mouth, and she stepped forward to tower further above Weiss. A shard of mangled dismay wrenched in the bottom of Weiss's stomach; Blake was cowing her into submission, flaying her steel nerves into limp shreds. There was cold fury in the curve of Blake's jaw, reminiscent of a reaping sickle with its cruel and broad angle.

"I survived when no one else vouched for me. I scratched my way out of the streets until my fingers were bloody. I watched your family and their thugs dump the bodies of Faunus children into the Midnight River like they were nothing more than animals."

Blake tossed her head back and laughed without humor.

"That's what we are to you, though. And why should it matter? Throughout history, the only opinions that have ever mattered are the ones of humans who had enough money to buy their way into high society. Your pride is built off of a lie. I made mine out of truths that I've seen all my life."

"Truths?" Weiss screeched in disbelief. She couldn't recognize her voice, her own faltering hands. She didn't know who she was when she stood in front of Blake. "You think the murders of delivery men and messengers are truths? Your people were too cowardly to target the people who mattered. So you chose to cut the heads off of innocent people who had little more than a word-of-mouth agreement connecting them to us!"

She wondered what Father would think of her now, picking a fight with an opponent that had the clear height and weight advantage. The real winner of a fight, he had always said, his voice clear and robust in Weiss's mind, was the one who chose the best enemy.

The advice had never sunk in properly, not until now, with Weiss pinned by Blake's preternatural eyes, trying to remain poised when the animalistic side of her longed to lunge at Blake's throat, just to draw attention away from the onslaught of tears starting to bother her. Deflect and destroy wasn't an option in a verbal argument though.

"Matching the numbers of our fallen family members was the only way to even the playing field." Blake's voice was sharp now, cutting past layers of pretense straight to the heart of the subject. Weiss let out an angry sob and stomped her foot against carpeted ground. A dull shock of pain ran up her leg, but the humiliation of crying in front of an enemy stung far more than a flesh wound.

"You won't recognize it, and it sickens me. You think I'm stupid because I grew up in a lie, but so did you, whether you like it or not." Weiss said, voice trembling in a thin, childish vibrato. Her chin wobbled. Blake's gaze wavered for the first time, golden placidity disturbed by the sharp moment. Weiss had shoved her foot in the door at the exact moment the Faunus's foundation had been shaken.

Weiss laughed, as wet and bitter as an autumnal leaf.

"Why can't you accept it, Blake? We're both jesters, just in different courts."

A cruel grin jack-knifed along Blake's mouth to match Weiss's; she glossed over the faint signs of vulnerability with the artificial calm of resin dragging across a painting.

"Believe what you will, but acceptance won't change anything between us. Acceptance will do nothing to bring back the lost lives." She had managed to harden her heart before Weiss again. It was a skill that Blake had in spades. Blake pressed her hand against Weiss's forearm to shove her aside, but Weiss was ready for her this time.

She gripped Blake's hand with all the force she could manage, and wrenched her hard enough that the Faunus stopped in her tracks, vagary flashing in stultified eyes. It took longer for the ripple in her mask to smooth over this time, and Weiss forced her composure to remain steady for the last final seconds of their failing encounter.

"Lay a hand on me again and I _will_ break you."

Blake's demeanor settled slowly, immaculately, lips parting into a close-mouthed smile that never traveled to her eyes.

"It's touching that you think there's something whole left inside of me."

oOo

When Weiss first met Blake, she didn't have to spend two minutes with her to know that she hated her. Later on, when she was searching for the reason of her opposition, there wasn't any clear answer. It wasn't just the activism or the fact that she was a Faunus. There was something else that she couldn't put her finger on, so finally, she settled on the fact that they were too different.

There was something laughable about that, seeing as diversity hadn't so much as smacked Weiss senseless when she'd first arrived at Beacon Academy. The Schnee Manor had only kept an ensemble cast of austere and subservient humans under their employ at all times, and Faunus were only seen in holographic news broadcasts before Weiss's father smashed his hand through their bloody pixels.

She supposed that there was really nothing to prepare her for a Faunus with feral eyes who contested every single thing that came out of her mouth, though, and even if there were, she wouldn't have paid enough attention to save her from this hell she was living in.

Blake defied every rule and predisposed boundary that Weiss had known for all her life. She was watchful, eerily so, as if she was always on the cusp of a fight, and it didn't take much for her entire body to stiffen, even if it was a passing pat on the shoulder from a sparring partner. Her etiquette was abhorrent; she ate every meal like it was her last and didn't even care to excuse herself from dining tables when she felt her presence was no longer needed; she just up and left, which seemed all the more indicative of her personality and its plenty of natural charms.

There were days when she became cold and unreadable, her usual dosage of sarcasm and bitterness amplified by whatever demons plagued her, straight, archless brows drawing together in the picture perfect image of severity. She was dangerous; it was painfully obvious in her thieving eyes and the languid coil of her mouth.

Blake was the black water lake where people went to drown, she was fifty stones in each pocket and breezeblocks strapped to broken ankles.

Sinking wasn't an option for Weiss, and it never would be.

So she kept away from Blake and tried to avoid the eerie calm of her eyes. ( _Amber, cold, rigid, like the substance that caught bugs and trapped them forever, and Weiss felt like she was going to get stuck if she stared at Blake for a second too long, felt like she was going to suffocate whenever Blake fixed her gelid gaze on her.)_

But they magnetized towards each other anyways. The scathing words that they exchanged on an almost daily basis were starting to become tiresome, since holding their tongues was apparently too hard for both of them. Weiss couldn't get one snide remark out without Blake shooting back something equally as acerbic or cutting, and the rest of the day went straight to hell.

It didn't take much for Weiss to become angry in the first place, but there was something about Blake that made her unnaturally furious, hackles rising on the back of her neck, teeth itching to sink into exposed flesh. She wanted to _fight_ Blake. She wanted to see her held helpless at the tip of Myrtenaster, to keep the beveled steel point of her rapier flush against the crest of that gently sloping neck, further her blade to the yield of skin until blood drops appeared, the first of a human's to grace Myrtenaster's parched steel.

Weiss played this scene behind her eyelids before sleeping sometimes, imagining Blake at her mercy, the Dust crystals in the chambers of her sword pulling multicolored tessellations across Blake's neck like a choker, fastened with a fat blood-ruby at her throat. She didn't want Blake to remain passive throughout this fictional encounter. No, there would be no victory if that amused gaze remained stolid above the silver panels of Myrtenaster's handguard.

Weiss _hated_ that, she _hated_ the way that Blake looked at her like she was trying to conceal a cruel laugh, like she didn't matter. She wanted those eyes to flicker and flame and for that thinly lipped mouth to form around a dark, wary expression.

It certainly wasn't ladylike behavior, Weiss supposed, to want to strangle her, no matter how dismissively Blake regarded her, down from the tip of her felidae nose. She wondered what her skin would feel like, if the column of her neck felt as cold as it looked. She wondered what would happen if she curled her fingers, one by one, into the

dips and crevasses of Blake's pulse, and _squeezed_.

oOo

The apple in Blake's hand was about two bites shy from the core.

It had ripened magnificently, scarlet skin flawless save for a few mottles around the edges of the stem. She tossed it lazily, pausing only to rip another chunk away from it with her teeth. She flicked through the worn pages of her novel before licking a quick path across her teeth.

She'd taken it upon herself to pace the halls whenever she fell prey to the sharp claws of insomnia, and had found that the dining hall offered solace whenever the librarian shut the doors to dust bookshelves without any silent-footed insomniac Faunus girls disturbing her.

 _(Nightmares were a prison that Blake chose to run from, rather than remain trapped in. After all, vulnerability could only be paid for with scars, and she finally had collected enough of them to toughen her up.)_

Two in the morning meant that the dining hall was free from the usual chatter that made her head spin. Somehow, while she was growing up, Blake had managed to associate noise with unrest. The places that she had once called home stayed silent until change was coming, whether it was word of mouth news that a group of Schnee Dust Company men were coming to kidnap Faunus men and women to mine away their ransom, or police coming to overturn their back alley tent slums. Blake had always left before any of that happened though.

She never saw anything through till the end.

The kitchens had closed three hours ago, and they wouldn't open for another five, but the fruit Blake picked at required no other preparation than a fine glass bowl to sit in. She plucked a few grapes from their bunch and added them to the small collection that she had started on her plate.

Blake finished off the rest of her apple before glancing back down at her book. She'd highlighted and ripped and dog-eared it to hell, but she still recognized her scrawl from a few years back crammed next to a passage quoting an old poet and one of her most famous works.

"There is sight, and there are humans who have not experienced it. There is sound, and there are humans who have not experienced it. If there is happiness, are there some humans who have not experienced it?"

Blake squinted to make out what she had written in the margins next to it.

" _If there is something as insignificant and small as hope, are there some who live their lives without experiencing it?"_

When she was young and looking at life through a fisheye lens, living was more of a struggle than it was an experience. Coexisting next to a personality like Adam's was trying to fight a hand pushing your head underwater.

So Blake disappeared into the musings of poetry and philosophy and art and learned what she could about renaissances and religious revolutions when she wasn't executing treasonous White Fang members in the damp chill of the night. A shiver ran up her spine when she thought of the riverbanks damp with blood, squelching under her shoes.

She'd stopped everyone else from escaping, spies and soldiers and sobbing children who had done far more to deserve their freedom than Blake did.

She didn't deserve her life. She really didn't.

When sleep finally sunk its unrelenting claws in her, Blake dreamt of two versions of herself, her younger one with the tougher eyes and blood-slicked hands, and her present one, with the sharper tongue and the hardened heart. The latter had knelt on the banks of a moonlit river, throat held captive by the freshly forged sheath of Gambol Shroud.

Blake woke up biting blood into her mouth. When she spat into the bathroom sink, she almost choked on a laugh. Even in her sleep, she knew when penance had to be paid.

oOo

"The religious conquests of King Lux and Queen Nyx take the prize for the bloodiest struggles between regions of Remnant, these being Mistral and Menagerie. Menagerie's main denomination was still shamanism at the time. Half a million warriors laid down their lives on the battlefield between the years of 1577 and 1584." Professor Goodwitch peered down at the outline that Oobleck had given her to aid her as she subbed for his lecture hall. From the grumbling that she tried to keep mostly her breath, the outline was doing more to exasperate than assist.

"To Dust with it." Goodwitch snapped finally. A shifting of tepid laughter spread across the hall. She tossed the paper aside and continued on with the lecture. "Lux and Nyx took it upon themselves to reform the indigenous peoples of Menagerie, which led in a revolt that lasted seven long years. Menagerie and Mistral were not the only affected lands though. Vacuo and Vale suffered as well.

"Menagerie used their cured meats and livestock as bait for the two lands to become their allies, but each land chose to remain neutral in the ordeal. After they tried to survive without a proper nutrition and sparse crops, untreated anemia and local fevers swept out small villages. Population density plummeted devastatingly low."

Goodwitch adjusted her spectacles and paused before speaking again.

"The horrors of this conquest did not end with the unnecessary bloodshed or the deaths of uninvolved innocents, but the fact that Lux and Nyx went to the guillotine with the sociopathic belief that they were martyrs. They thought that the murders they committed would earn them the eternal graces of their neo-pagan gods."

Blake watched as her professor fiddled the strap of her cape across the yoke of her shoulders, like she was shrugging it off of her.

"Tell me, students, in your own opinion, which is worse: to believe that you are saving souls that never asked for absolution or to be stubborn and lose thousands of your population because you don't know when to give in to a higher power?"

The class was quiet, not in contemplation as Professor Goodwitch would've liked, but in the fear that she would dismiss their opinion as foolish.

Blake raised her hand and spoke.

"The former, for me." She said cautiously. Goodwitch gestured for her to elaborate, almost desperate for her to continue. She leaned towards Blake's side of the classroom. "Lux and Nyx began to play god near the end of their lives. Wasn't their original intent to serve their own? They manipulated the fate of an impressionable, uncivilized clan - who would have been happy to stay that way - and in turn, their own as well."

Glynda looked appreciative to the point of tears, until someone on the other side of the class cleared their throat. Glynda took a look at her seating chart and glanced at the person with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Your thoughts, Miss Schnee?"

A gnarled seed of distaste took root in Blake's stomach, and her lip curled despite how much she longed to remain unaffected.

"The second, Professor Goodwitch, in my opinion, is more of an unforgivable fault. If the people of Menagerie had given in earlier, the death toll would be most likely cut in half. After all, isn't it you who taught us that a true Huntsman knows when to surrender respectfully?"

"There would be no need to 'surrender respectfully' if Nyx and Lux hadn't started their rampage against Menagerie in the first place." Blake snapped bitterly, earning her a sharp look from Goodwitch.

Weiss retaliated quicker than Blake expected her to.

"Often times, a particular culture's faults lie in the way they react, not the way that they proactively create situations." Weiss replied. Blake could practically hear the smile in her words. Even from across the room, her voice was swift and cutting, daggers and needles to Blake's broad blades and swords. Weiss simpered, a sickeningly sweet giggle that rang true and sharp.

"Perhaps the same could be said for a _certain_ de facto organization currently roaming the streets of Remnant."

 _ **"Ladies!"**_

Goodwitch snapped her riding crop against the flat of her hand, and cold silence settled across the classroom. Blake could barely contain the anger that threatened to override any rational thought that she was trying to focus on. Her fists wrenched the skirt in her lap.

Goodwitch ran her tongue across the tightly drawn line of her upper lip, knuckles wrapped harshly around the base of her crop. She gathered her self-command in a few brief moments, and spoke stiltedly, as if her tongue was ridged and was having trouble releasing each word.

"It seems that you two have forgotten where you are, so let me remind you." Professor Goodwitch's pale eyes cut an impressive arc in the space between Weiss and Blake. "You are in a classroom of the finest degree, a home to education that was built out of rubble and ash after the Great War. The students who came before you - empresses, politicians, tribe leaders, businessmen - these are the people who sat in the seats you lounge in today. Thousands of men and women laid down their differences to learn something in these hallowed halls and respected each other no matter how starkly their personal opinions differed. This is something that I think you two could _easily_ benefit from."

Goodwitch tucked the crop back into her left boot and set her hands on the desk before her. Blake was sitting four rows back from the lowered pit of the room, but she could still see the silver lines of scars that healed long ago running up and down the backs of her wrists like faultlines. The Dust that she used so often looked like it was settling under her skin after years of using raw crystals in battle.

"You two should know by now that intellectual disagreements are settled diplomatically, while matters of the body and physical strength are remedied in the sparring room. Bickering like uneducated children shows me that I obviously overestimated your individual maturities." Glynda steeled her lantern jaw. "Now, if you'll let me continue…"

Shame flooded through Blake's limbs, and she could only hope that Weiss was feeling the same amount of ignominy that she was under now. God knew that she if she was going down, that spoiled excuse for a Huntress was going down with her.

oOo

"Shit, Goodwitch really sank her teeth into you and Ice Queen today." Yang muttered as she sidled up to Blake outside of class. Blake glanced over at Yang, who looked sunny as always, even when her voice was grave with concern. Her hair was pulled back and tied with a strip of plaid that she had trimmed off the edge of her uniform skirt.

Blake shrugged flippantly, no matter how fresh the memory of her public humiliation was. It was easier to deflect than open up anyways. Yang wanted to press the subject further, but let off, and Blake silently blessed her for knowing when to back off at the right moments.

They barely made it two more feet before Yang piped up again, eyes shining like they did whenever she got a good idea.

"Wanna get a drink?"

oOo

Downtown Vale on a Thursday night might as well have been Yang's celestial playground. Yang had asked their cabbie to drop them off at The Mermaid Motel, a kitsch staple on the downtown strip. The bar in the lobby of the motel was famous for being a local watering hole for attractive singles of all ages. They'd barely sat down at the bar before Yang was already batting her lashes at a girl across the room.

Blake shoved her hand across Yang's face and clucked her tongue disapprovingly.

"Slow down, tiger. You're not even on your second drink yet." Yang ducked past Blake's impromptu barrier and nibbled on her lower lip, finger running a teasing track along the rim of her martini glass.

"Oh, please. Just because you don't wanna have some fun doesn't mean I can't." Yang turned back to her drink and took a leisurely sip.

Blake twisted a cherry stem between her fingers and tossed it onto her cocktail napkin.

"Yang, you and I have very different ideas about what's fun and what's not."

Yang snorted and ordered a second of her downed drink, adding another one of Blake's to her tab as well.

"Fun means getting laid on a weeknight, two weeks before spring break starts." Yang cast Blake a sideways look. "I think it'd be hard to contest that." Blake flushed involuntarily, hoping it wouldn't be as noticeable under the dim lights.

Yang surged on.

"Besides, you may be getting pussy left and right, but I've been around Ruby for so long that I think I'm reverting back to PG. I miss my kinks." Yang pouted, swinging her ankles. Blake coughed at Yang's frankness and looked down at her hands. Yang took notice a few second late, but her reaction was no less monumental. She leaned forward immediately.

" _You haven't been getting laid?!_ "

"Yang, for God's sake!" Blake snapped, motioning for her to keep her voice down. "How do you expect me to find someone to fuck when I haven't been out of Beacon since orientation day?"

"There's plenty of eye candy in the dorms! Aaaand, I've seen the way Velvet looks at you. Now _that_ would be a fun time..." Yang said conversationally, then took on a higher falsetto to add to the theatrical element of her conversation. " _V-Velvet senpai..."_ Yang fluttered her lashes before Blake shoved her off the barstool.

Yang caught herself before she fell and carried on like nothing had happened.

"And anyways, you should at least be getting off even if you're without a lady love." Blake groaned at Yang's particular word choice. She was candid to the point of second-hand embarrassment. "You have fingers, Blake - _use them_."

"You want me to get off while your little sister is in the same room?" Blake asked, arching a brow. Bringing Ruby into the mix usually made Yang back down. Yang mulled that over for a bit before shrugging.

"Girls have needs, Blakey. It's understandable. Besides, haven't you heard Ice Queen going at it?" Yang asked, tilting her head to the right. Blake glared at her, disbelieving. "Really? I would have thought that those second pair of ears would've been good for something." Yang stirred her drink and popped a handful of husked edamame into her mouth. "She's a grunter. And has more than a healthy appetite, if you ask me."

Blake shook her head.

"You're ridiculous."

"Listen, she may come from a family so rich that they probably shit gold, but I'm not lying. What benefit would I get from lying about this?" Yang demanded before sighing, hanging her head. "Being a light sleeper really sucks."

Blake grunted sympathetically before continuing on, albeit cautiously.

"How come I've never heard you... you know…" She left the end of the sentence as open-ended as possible, waiting for the understanding to spark in Yang's eyes. When it did, Yang cackled and slapped her hands against her thighs.

"I hate to disappoint, but I've never really needed to diddle the skittle. I've always had booty calls on speed dial when I wasn't dating around, so my needs have been mostly satisfied with other people."

Blake rolled her eyes, smiling all the same.

"But hey, in ten years, if you're still puttering around, mean, alone, bordering on the edge of insanity, and all of my exes meet up and decide to begin a polyamorous relationship without me, I'm first in line."

"Nice to know that I'm a number one priority." Blake said drily. She wasn't hurt, rather amused to no end. Yang was attractive, and probably knew how to throw her weight around in the bedroom, and the offer was thoughtful, no matter how crude the wording was.

Yang laughed again, thunderous and bright.

"I'd tame you for a night, kitty cat." She winked saucily at Blake, who allowed a slow, indulgent smile to spread across her face.

"I'd like to see you try."

"Oh, shit!"

The woman across the bar finally made eye contact with Yang and made a sultry, come-hither motion with her forefinger. Yang made the sign of the cross and pressed a kiss to her hands. "Mother Mary answered my prayers!"

Yang slammed her drink and grabbed her purse, but not before slipping Blake a few Lien.

"For the ride home, babe. Tell Ruby to forgive me for what I'm about to do-oooooooo!" And like that, the blonde was gone, disappearing into the darker edges of the bar in a blink of an eye. Yang and her new companion would probably split a room up at the Motel and she'd be home at Beacon, sated and spent before four.

Blake settled her tab and hailed a cab outside. It was barely past midnight, and she felt a bit tipsy, wavering at a comfortable level of drunkenness. The ride back up to Beacon only cost half of what Yang had given her, so Blake left the rest as a tip. Yang wouldn't take the change even if she brought it back.

(" _I fucking hate coins!")_

When Blake reached her dorm, Weiss and Ruby were sitting up, talking aimlessly as Weiss flipped open her Scroll. Ruby glanced up from her own tablet when the door opened, and grinned at Blake. Blake wondered if she had ever smiled that easily before, but chose to ignore that buzzkill of a thought to set down her keys and slip off her boots.

"Hey, Blake!" Ruby peered behind Blake, searching for her sister. "Where's Yang?"

Blake hesitated before answering her tentatively.

"She... made a new friend."

Ruby nodded sagely, then abandoned the topic altogether to show Blake the screen on her tablet. A picture of Zwei standing in a cabbage garden was blown up to fill the pixels, and Blake trapped a hiss behind her teeth.

"He says hi, and that he misses you, and that he's really sorry that he peed on your bed." Ruby said, so sincerely that Blake couldn't help but smile a little.

"He's sweet for thinking of me."

Blake liked how guileless Ruby was. She floated through life, chopped up some Grimm when it was needed, smiled at strangers, never had to worry about corruption or deception. Whenever Ruby smiled at her, it was like seven-year-old Ruby was smiling up at her through gapped teeth and sunburnt lips. It was nice.

"Oh, Ruby," Weiss cut in, her voice clarion and sweet. She had effectively edged Blake out of the conversation. "Have you heard about the White Fang rioting in Vacuo?"

Ruby shook her head, a bit confused.

"No? Well, twenty-six citizens died at the hand of Faunus commanding officers."

Ruby glanced down, horribly uncomfortable.

"I guess it really shows that you can't break a vicious cycle…" Weiss sang out the last sentence, her voice saccharine and suffocatingly angelic.

"Weiss… maybe we shouldn't bring that up now…." Ruby said meekly, voice soft around the edges. She looked down at her hands through long lashes.

"Oh, but why not, Ruby? It's current events! Important news if you ask me."

"Don't drag Ruby into this." Blake commanded, turning towards Weiss. Weiss's eyes were full of veiled delight; she'd finally gotten a rise out of Blake.

"Drag Ruby into what?" Weiss feigned innocence, but the twisted angle of her smile was a dead giveaway that she was completely aware of what she was doing. "A conversation?"

"You want to talk about vicious cycles, Weiss?" Blake whispered, voice deathly quiet. "How about we talk about the one where your family continues to exploit weakness and monopolizes the entire economy? You know what they say, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer."

Weiss's face drew tighter, the thin bones of her face shifting uncomfortably.

"You're living proof of it, actually."

Blake's buzz was dissipating around her, and her head felt clearer than it had been in a long time. Weiss stood from her bunk and faced Blake. It was like they were zeroing on each other, a loathsome magnetism dragging them involuntarily closer together.

"And you, Blake? What about the fact that there's something so sick and twisted inside you that it makes you tear down other people so that it doesn't rear its head and hurt you instead?" Weiss asked, staring at Blake through the pale, jagged strands of her fringe.

"Just so you don't have to face the fact that you're as much of a hypocrite as I am." Weiss hissed, watching as Blake sifted through her catalogue of reactions, each one becoming more and more defiant in nature.

"Better than to live with a last name that's practically synonymous with tyranny."

"Better than to wallow in a past that you can't change."

"Please stop!" Ruby cried, tears glinting at the corners of her eyes. She was standing near the door, halfway between shrinking into the wall and jumping between them. "How can you even stand to say these things to each other?" Her chest rose tremulously, fists clenched. "You can't keep doing this! How are we supposed to be a team if you can't last two minutes without jumping at each other's throats?"

Ruby gasped for a fluttering breath.

"If you're both this unhappy, then ask to get switched to a different team, please. Because I really can't take it anymore, I can't."

Weiss looked as stricken as Blake felt, watching the younger girl try to contain her frustration without bursting into tears. She swiped at her cheeks, tried haltingly to unfurl her hands from the fists that they had been locked in. Blake watched her, and tried to search for the words that would help to soothe her. Instead, she left, like she always did, arms crossed to fend off the cold of the night.

oOo

Weiss pulled Myrtenaster out from its needle-thin sheath, fingertips worrying at the barrel absently. Ruby had refused to speak to her after Blake left the room, choosing to ignore her for fitful sleep. The only place that Weiss could go at this hour was the training room, hollow with curving ceilings and abundant in training equipment ready to be shredded to pieces.

She made her way into one of the private rooms, and punched in her identification number. The AI allowed her to pull up a few training exercises to help her improve on her glyph and rune usage, reminding her that in her last battle, she had run out especially fast of Dust. She decided on a practice that forced her to use all of her Dust in the first few minutes before making her fight without any enhancers.

A designated amount of capsules spilled into Weiss's hands from a slot in the wall, and she counted them while the AI reminded her that the moment that her ammunition was loaded, the training would start.

Weiss poised her arm in front of her, silk-covered foot pointing forward's. Her stance always made her feel like a ballerina, a small fantasy that she'd liked to entertain as a child. Instantly, a glass Ursa Major target galloped on four legs down the midway of the room, approaching her faster and faster with all the ferocity and single-mindedness of its flesh and bone brother.

A glyph sprung alive at Weiss's crooked fingertips, shining white and black with crystallized patterns.

It shuddered milliseconds before the animal advanced, and absorbed the brunt of the target's force, forcing it to shatter into pieces in front of Weiss's eyes. Two dark eyed Beowolves materialized before she could even step over the broken body of the Ursa. They were coming from opposite sides of the room, moving on loping, hungry steps. Weiss growled under her breath and sprung into the air, soaring upwards with the help of a glyph under her feet.

Weiss grit her teeth, tumbling down onto her knees while the two targets skidded inches away from smashing into each other. They gnashed their painted fiberglass teeth together before turning abruptly to face her in the corner of the room. Her landing was less than stellar, and she could already feel the bruises taking root near her kneecaps.

Three capsules remained in the barrel of her sword, and Myrtenaster started to make the hungry clicking noise it made when its chambers were emptying out.

Weiss was already panting, but she decided to catch her breath later, choosing to throw her weight towards the two obstacles on the other side of the room. An agility glyph flung her forward - yellow edged her eyesight - and helped as she delivered an arcing gash through the first Beowulf's heart. The next trembled and splintered into nothingness when Weiss sank her rapier hilt-deep into its neck.

She was grateful for the aching pulse in her mind and body. It was a good distraction from thinking about Blake's presumptuous glower and the urge to press her thumbs to the tops of her neck. That would make her shut up, wouldn't it? You couldn't talk when you're gasping, struggling for breath, mouth open like an ugly fish -

Weiss flipped away from the fourth obstacle, swinging down from the ceiling in the form of a massive Nevermore. She was inches away from being snapped in half by a beveled beak. Glass crunched under her hands, slipped under her nails in painful, pinching thickets. She barely registered the blood slicking her fingers; Myrtenaster fumbled in her hands as the AI's voice transformed into the raw, husky tones of a Nevermore's hunting call.

Weiss flipped the chambers to her last barrier Dust capsule and let the Nevermore's glass body collide with one of her glyphs, now flickering to icy blue. She grit her teeth at the reverberating force. The Nevermore shook its head dazedly and looped around to gain its upper ground. Weiss shoved the dissipating remains of the glimmering runes to throw a path of ice along the Nevermore's downhill path. She slipped down the sleet to cut a path underneath the Grimm's hulking stomach.

It was sort of entrancing, watching its insides fracture and fall around her like icicles. She could see her reflection if she tried hard enough, the fall of white hair over her eye, the cheeks flushed, the eyes filthy with fury. The Nevermore's transparent wings started to falter, and its body smashed unceremoniously against the wall.

A painful stitch shoved its way into Weiss's side, and she tried to keep her knees from buckling as she gasped for a full lungful of air. The last capsule in Myrtenaster rattled hollowly, its faceted sides knocking around in the barrel. Weiss's knees almost gave way under her.

She caught sight of the Nevermore's ruby-fire eyes blinking as its power died out slowly. The eyes looked so hollow, so empty. They looked helpless. The waist of Weiss's dress felt all too tight suddenly - it reminded her of something she had seen so long ago - and in flashes, memories of seeing those same eyes flooded Weiss once more.

It had been Faunus eyes. They were bloodied, mangled, inset by the sober face of a plain-looking news anchor, fingers locked in front of her in white-knuckled composure. Somehow, Father's normal news channel had been swapped to this one, and instead of climbing stock prices and coverages of company acquisitions, this seemed to focus solely on Faunus news.

There were candids of women and men being chased out of their homes, hulking officers carrying shredded, bloody ears and tails like war trophies, down their necks and in their pockets like handkerchiefs, grinning madly. And there was fire, so much of it.

Houses, businesses, schools, set with flames that refused to be put out, all by men in black jumpsuits with the Schnee crest emblazoned on their backs. They looked like monsters, heavy wrought masks clamped across their mouths to protect from the smoke.

Weiss had been seven at the time. She hadn't really registered it when her father walked in, fingers fiddling with his cuff links. He set eyes on the news footage later than everyone else, who had gone rigid with fear. The next moments were blurry, but she remembered that her father had turned on her, shaking her, hands as furious and cold as a roll of thunder. She had tried to speak, but he overpowered her easily - there were a lot of knives at breakfast tables, weren't there?

The pleads that spilled out of her flailed and floundered, ankles swinging as he shook her senseless, but all that she heard was "God damned bitch, fucking worthless - "

"Miss Schnee!" The AI's voice snapped Weiss back to attention. She was on the ground, Myrtenaster by her side, a glass King Taijitu's jaws inches away from her face. "Miss Schnee, are you alright? Heart rate and blood pressure heightened and climbing, nervous system functioning higher than normal; history of panic attacks - "

There was a noose of simian tails wrapped around Weiss's neck, strangling the breath out of her.

"I'm fine!" She screamed brokenly, hands skittering across the ground. Myrtenaster clattered gracelessly against broken shards of glass. The room's machinations hummed while retracting the last target back into the wall. The AI began to rattle off the statistics of her session, albeit a bit judgmentally.

"Shall I alert Professor Goodwitch?" She added after. "It appears that she is still awake. I am positive that she can administer proper care and restorative aids to you."

Weiss pressed her palms to her heart, jackhammering in her chest as if it was trying to jump from her ribs. She'd done this as a child, calming herself with the comfort of her own body. She used to imagine the cold ice of her heart melted by sunflower fingers, until she was blooming and breathing like a normal girl.

"No." Weiss commanded immediately. She liked when she sounded authoritative. She liked when she was in positions to sound that way. "Don't do that."

"Very well then." The AI replied. "Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Schnee?" The machine's voice sounded like Weiss's mother's, quiet, calm, ghostlike - the way she did near the end of her life. She wanted to vomit.

"No, no, no!" Weiss shouted. The AI murmured something to her, but it got lost, since all she could hear was the click of her mother's high heels against marble, the static switching through Father's news channels, the rasp of pale hands framing the Scroll's screen.

She had set empty eyes on Weiss, who watched her uncertainly.

"This'll be our little secret, _sonnenblum_ , won't it?"

oOo

Blake lit the candelabra in her hands carefully.

Heat flushed her hands, travelling up her spine, and the match in her hand sputtered out once all of the candles were lit and successfully casting light across the book in her lap. Time escaped her as it tended to do in the library, but the words in her novel were starting to make less and less sense. Letters swirled in her mind, tangling and repairing into nonsensical sentences with disparaged characters. Her hands felt weak and jittery.

She could always go back to the room, but she didn't feel like facing Weiss right now. She was too tired.

Blake rolled her head across her shoulder, coiling a stiff, numbed hand through her hair. She yawned and curled her feet under her. The candles that she had just lit were starting to gutter, struggling to offer warmth after the stale, cold wind of unoccupied space ate away at their light. She put her book down beside her, trying not to fall asleep in the torn armchair she had sat in for what felt like the entire night.

She figured that she still smelled like liquor and the warmth of The Mermaid Motel's bar. She bunched her hands into her hair, stretching languidly until her legs and limbs filled every inch of the upholstery. Her ears ached; she had kept the bow on for longer than usual today, and their tender edges were starting to rub the wrong way against the ebony silk.

"I thought I'd find you here."

Blake tilted her head, recognizing the voice immediately. Yang plopped into the chair next to her, gold hair falling around her eyes in wicked angles. She looked tired, exhausted even. She slipped off her shoes, rubbing her eyes until her mascara was smudged. Somehow, she still looked pretty, purple eyes gleaming through rings of black, bloodshot veins spidering through pale white skin.

"Have a good night?" Blake asked through a second yawn. Yang hummed in agreement, propping her feet up onto the small table in front of her. The strap of her dress slipped off her shoulder when she shrugged flippantly.

"Same as the others." She said before she glanced at Blake from the side of her eye. "Ruby texted me and I came home early." Blake widened her eyes as Yang's tone bordered on exasperation. "Now, I'm only going to ask you once, Belladonna, and you better answer me proper." Yang turned in her seat to face Blake. "Why do you two fight all the _god damn_ time?"

Blake paused, watching as Yang considered her next words when she realized that Blake wasn't to speak right away.

"I'm fine with you keeping it between yourselves." Yang looked different now - stern for the first time since Blake's known her. It made something unravel in her stomach, and suddenly, she was embarrassed and upset with herself. Perhaps this was what it felt like to have an older sister. "But you've brought Ruby into this now, and I'm going to tell you that no matter how close you are to me, if you hurt her, I _will_ end you."

Yang's gaze stayed even and uncompromising when Blake shifted under the uncomfortable and unwanted attention. She looked a bit like Professor Goodwitch now, thin lipped and strict. It was a comparison that Blake never expected that she would ever make in her life.

"I asked you a question, Blake."

"I don't know." Blake said desperately. She felt wrong, just gnarled and pitted and sick. "I just can't bite my tongue when I'm around her, and I feel like such a fool. She's _aggravating_ , I don't know why she insists on being so difficult - "

Yang didn't give her time to finish her thought, cutting her off when she reached over to grip Blake by the back of her neck. She initiated the kiss, lips sealed firmly across Blake's mouth. It wasn't passionate or sweet, but pleasureable all the same. Yang's skill was clear and impressive even in a close mouthed kiss. All in all, it was still a bland kiss.

When they parted, Yang didn't look flushed or nervous, just bored and slightly amused. Blake felt the same, along with a small tinge of confusion. Yang swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, propping her chin onto her fist, a slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"What'd you feel when we kissed?"

Blake grimaced.

"Honestly? Nothing."

"Exactly." Yang nodded emphatically. Blake furrowed her brows in response. "And I know for a fact that there's a certain heiress who makes you feel _everything,_ even if you want to deny it."

"You're kidding. Are you suggesting that I'm in love with that - "

"I never said 'love.' " Yang chided her instantly. "I know that you guys have some obvious issues with each other, but that pettiness is probably getting in the way of how bad you want to pin her to a fucking wall."

Blake's mouth felt dry at the imagery.

Weiss's wrist trapped under her fingers, her bird waist rising and falling with heavy breaths, her mouth laving across a thin neck, quivering and pulsing with a heightened heartbeat -

"Are you insane?" Blake demanded.

Yang rolled her eyes.

"Is that even a question?"

oOo

"Yang!"

Ruby darted down the narrow hallways of Beacon to rush her sister into a bear hug. Blake and Yang had ended up falling asleep in the library and missed their first morning class with the other half of their team. The natural light flooding the halls seemed semi-fluorescent to Blake. She just wanted to sleep.

Weiss followed Ruby's rose trail path and stood by to watch Ruby jump into her sister's arms, ten-pound book bag, collapsed Crescent Rose, coffee cup and all. Weiss cut her eyes across Blake, who arched a brow in return.

The scowl on her face shouldn't have been as pretty as it was.

Blake felt physically sickened by the thought, but ever since Yang had intercepted her at the library last night, she couldn't help but think over all of those moments where she and Weiss had been throat to throat, inches away from strangling each other in front of the rest of their team. Blake had been close enough to smell Weiss, the scents of filamented lilies and crushed lavender. She had been close enough to see every feature of her face before.

Weiss was candidly pretty.

It was sort of a higher truth, an undeniable fact. Blake usually ignored that when they were fighting, but still, her marmoreal features seemed like golden glass and glaciers rather than flesh and blood. Every part of her resembled a queen. Slight frame, thin but supple legs, a throat made for jewels - Weiss was meant to be crowned and worshipped.

Blake's mouth curled at the thought of her sitting at Weiss's feet, begging to be touched, keening into her regal hands. A perfect portrait, just another Faunus cowed into submission by just another Schnee.

"What is it?" Weiss snapped. Blake blinked, switching her attention back to her surroundings. "You've been looking at me for a full five minutes; what is it?"

She looked more petulant than normal, arms wound tightly across her chest. The miniature dip of her blouse gave way to a pale slice of skin that was starting to flush pink here and there. Blake licked her lips, leveling her eyes with Weiss's.

"Nothing."

Weiss frowned even deeper than before and turned on her heel, stalking back down the halls. Yang was still holding Ruby in her arms, who was now sprawled bridal style. She jutted her chin towards Weiss's retreating figure. Ruby remained blissfully oblivious to the silent communication going on around her, choosing to flip open her Scroll to check her texts, filling the empty space with one-sided conversation.

She hadn't spoken to Blake yet, but there was no ill intention following her this morning.

"Stop being a little scaredy-cat." Yang snapped at Blake finally, rolling her eyes when Blake remained frozen in the middle of the hall, hands glued to the strap of her bookbag. Weiss's ponytail bobbed further and further away, disappearing into a crowd of strangers. Blake shot a look at Yang, furrowing her brows in annoyance. Yang stuck her tongue out in response.

They were both slightly hungover and starting to get on each other's nerves. Mornings were not their strong suits.

Blake found use of her legs and set off to follow Weiss, shoving past a few upperclassmen to catch up to her teammate. Little as she was, Weiss's legs carried her far faster than Blake expected. She had already reached a different corridor.

When she turned the corner, Weiss was leaning against the wall, ankles crossed and legs bent. She was painted in midday sunlight, golden shadows playing across her skin. She was just... standing there. Looking out the window, pale lips pressed together in thought.

She shouldn't have looked as pretty as she did.

It was like an animal possession that took over Blake, but suddenly, she was halfway across the hall, and Weiss was tensing like a bird about to fly. She straightened, but Blake captured Weiss's wrist in her fingers before she could move away. She pulled both of them down the hall until they were crammed into a shadowed doorway, far away from the students filling the distant halls.

"What the fuck are you _doing_ \- "

Blake bent her head so that her lips were almost brushing against Weiss's nose.

"I hate you." Blake said quietly, her voice however firm. "I hate you so _damn_ much." Weiss sucked in a sharp breath at the breath ghosting across her skin, the brush of Blake's hair against the crest of her cheek. She arched instinctively, pulse thudding against Blake's fingers.

"You think I don't know that already?" She hissed. "Now let _go_ of me - "

"Kiss me." Blake's demand came low from her throat. Weiss stiffened under her immediately.

"Kiss me, please."

The last word was an afterthought, a gentle plea, the soft caress after a scratch. Weiss's eyes glanced off of every feature of Blake's face, flitting from her eyes to her cheeks to her mouth.

"You want me to?" Weiss murmured, closing her eyes when Blake shifted her thumb across her palm. Blake laughed under her breath and nodded against her skin. Weiss shuddered at the sensation and tilted her head up, ever so slightly, until her lips brushed against Blake's.

Barely there contact still managed to send shivers down Blake's spine, and she tried to contain herself from gripping Weiss's wrist hard enough to snap it. Weiss's pretty doe neck stretched upwards like it was climbing skyward, and the kiss became less of a graze of lips and more of a real kiss.

Weiss reached to cup Blake's jaw with her free hand. She strained against the pressure of Blake's fingers around her wrist ever so slightly. It was a rush to feel held down by someone so much stronger than her. The first tentative slip of teeth against Weiss's mouth had her gasping though, and she managed enough leeway to flip her hand over. Blake clumsily laced their fingers together.

This was nothing like kissing Yang; this was stupidly exhilarating and ridiculous and a mistake - there was just too much of _everything_ fueling this, and it felt like they were overflowing. Weiss ground her hips up into Blake's, smiling slightly when the Faunus girl reached up and curled her hands through her hair. The noise that Weiss made in return was ecstatic.

It was a gorgeous, glowing moan that made goosebumps flutter down Blake's arms and along her stomach. Weiss felt warm all over, skin hot and flooded with excitement. Weiss felt so much more fragile in Blake's hands. It was sort of a wake up call. Maybe Weiss kept people away from her to stop them from breaking her glass castle of a body.

Blake tugged a little playfully on the edges of Weiss's ponytail, laughing at the angry growl that Weiss snapped out at her.

"Are you gonna break me?" Blake murmured into Weiss's mouth. Weiss's eyes turned down at the edges even though they were already shut. She tilted her head and parted her lips properly.

"What are you talking about?"

"You said that you'd break me the next time that I touched you."

Weiss's cheeks flushed redder and she sank her teeth into Blake's bottom lip.

"Shut up."


End file.
